Wars of the Samurai: Old Glory Cavalry

I'm back with another unit for my Pike & Shotte: Wars of the Samurai armies. This will be the first of three cavalry units I'll be fielding on the table.

As mentioned in my last post, I was able to buy a large quantity of secondhand Old Glory miniatures at a convention flea market. The cavalry was in pretty rough shape, with the figures partially assembled using globs of hot glue and epoxy, and many of the riders suffering from badly bent and broken weapons. After a day of disassembly, cleaning, rebuilding, and rebasing, I was able to assemble three 12-man units. 

While the sculpting quality of both the riders and horses is reasonable, especially considering the price, there is a significant issues with how the separate riders fit onto the horses.  The open shape under the saddle/rider's legs is much wider that the horse's back, resulting in huge gaps between the two. Even squeezing the rider's legs against the horse doesn't completely eliminate the issue. 

As such, the only way to get the figures to look ok is to fill the gaps with large amounts of Green Stuff or putty and try to blend it in with shaping and paint.

My figures came with six horse poses, so you can get a good variety for 12-man units. I used the excellent images on the Kriget Kommer blog when selecting horse colorations. 

The riders come in a variety of armor styles, which is nice, but some styles seem a bit archaic for my mid 16th Century setting based on the Osprey books I have.  However, I'm not an expert and worst case, perhaps some samurai still like the older styles.  The faces and bodies of the riders are not as realistically proportioned as the Perry figures, but do have a lot of character and remind me of exaggerated woodblock prints. 

The armor and lacing color selections were based on the Osprey books, the catalog of Osaka Castle's armament collection, and various woodblock prints. I tried to go for a mix of elaborate and subdued lacing, both for variety and to preserve my own sanity while painting.

This particular unit will be Mōri clan allies for my Ikkō-Ikki army. I've gone with a red standard, as I've seen this color associated a lot with the Mōri. In the future, I'll order some Mōri clan mon decals for the standard.

While these figures will never hold a candle to the newer samurai miniatures on the market, I think they are still a viable option if you're on a budget and and have the ability to work around their shortcomings.
 

Wars of the Samurai: Ikkō-Ikki

I'm back with another resurrected Warhammer Ancient Battles project.  Originally abandoned when Warhammer Historical dissolved and the Divine Wind supplement was cancelled, I completed some of the figures about 13 years ago for Osprey's Ronin game. But the majority have sat unpainted in the pile of shame at the bottom of the hobby closet. With Warlord Games releasing their Wars of the Samurai supplement for Pike and Shotte, I figured it was time to get this project out of mothballs.

As no other players around here are into Samurai, I'm going to build two smaller forces:  the Ikkō-Ikki Buddhist rebels and forces loyal to Oda Nobunaga in the late 16th Century.

First up are the sohei monks.  I painted these a while back, but basing materials have improved since I last worked on them, so I've refurbished them to a more modern standard, similar to my old Hail Caesar armies found elsewhere on the blog.

The figures are Old Glory and The Assault Group (TAG), with a Perry miniature thrown in as well. There were no sohei bannermen available at the time, so I tried to create one from an Old Glory samurai using greenstuff.

I had a few of the peasant figures painted back in the day, but the majority came from the unpainted lead pile.  These are a mix of Old Glory peasant infantry, TAG peasants and followers, Perry's dedicated Ikko-Ikki, and a few wako pirates from the old Cavalcade line.  The sculpting styles vary widely between the lines. The TAG are thick and a bit characterized, the Perry are thinner with realistic faces, and the Old Glory are somewhere in between the two in size and style. The Cavalcade are the smallest and weakest of the sculpts  and my least favorite out of the mix. If I were to start over today, I'd likley go a different route, but at the time TAG and Cavalcade were available at the local shop and I was able to get the budget friendly Old Gory figures at a convention flea market for pennies on the dollar. 

These eight stands will form the backbone of the force, but I am looking to supplement them with some teppo (matchlock) and yumi (bow) ranged units and samurai from the allied Mōri clan.

Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist Temple and Ikkō-Ikki

Time to revisit another old project.  I was a pretty avid Warhammer Ancient Battles player and started collected samurai figures (I've got about 300 mostly unpainted figures stashed in the closet) for their Divine Wind supplement. Sadly WAB was shut down before they every released the supplement, so this project has been gathering dust for years.  Now that Osprey is releasing their Ronin rules, I thought it might be a good idea to revisit what I had in my collection.

First up is a Buddhist temple complex I bought from John Jenkins Designs.  I bought mine unpainted and I remember it being quite a bit of work to get the resin in a state where primer and paint would stick.  However, the level of detail is fantastic and there were hardly any bubbles.  My only complaint was that the wall corners were not square and there was some warping on the front gate, making it difficult to get them to fit tightly.  I used plastic card under some of the wall sections to try and help, but as you can see below, it still isn't perfect.

I planned to have my battles between the forces of  Oda Nobunaga and the Ikkō-ikki, so I have styled my temples as belonging to Jōdo Shinshū  Buddhists. The mon and purple trim were taken from the American website of Jōdo Shinshū.

Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist temple

Main temple gate

Main temple building with the Jōdo Shinshū  Mon.  The writing on the placards comes from various prayers.

Rear of the temple

 To lead my Ikkō-Ikki, I painted a Perry miniature to look like Kennyo, head abbot of the fortress temple Ishiyama Hongan-ji.

Hongan-ji Kennyo 本願寺 顕如

 His clothing is based on an image I found in a Japanese history magazine about Oda Nobunaga.

Hongan-ji Kennyo 本願寺 顕如

 For his  Jōdo Shinshū Sōhei supporters, my figures are mostly a mix of Old Glory, TAG, and a single Perry figure.  During my travels in Japan looking for info on the Ikkō-Ikki (luckily I have a Japanese wife who is willing to humor me and provide translating support), images of Jōdo Shinshū monks generally showed them in darker colored robes rather than the oranges and yellows commonly seen on miniatures, so I have painted them accordingly.  However, I did take some liberty with the sashes to give them a bit more pop.  The figure with the banner is a poorly converted (I'm not that great with green stuff) Old Glory samurai, with the Buddhist prayer seen on the cover of Carol Richmond Tsang's, "War and Faith: Ikkō-Ikki in Late Muromachi Japan" written in by my wife.  This translates as, "Advance and be reborn in paradise; retreat and fall immediately into hell."

Jōdo Shinshū Sōhei

Beside monks, a significant number of farmers, merchants and samurai joined the Ikkō-Ikki movement as well, which I have pictured below.  The red flag is one flown by the Zempuki-ji Ikkō-Ikki at the siege of Ishiyama Hongan-ji (taken from Plate H in Stephen Turnbull's, "Japanese Warrior Monks AD 949-1603") .

Ikkō-Ikki

Ikkō-Ikki

These figures are also Old Glory, TAG and Perry.  The TAG and some of the Old Glory figures are actually from an earlier era in Japan, but I think they cam be slipped in without too big of an issue (though I wouldn't try to pull it off with some of the samurai figures).   

For painting guides, I used the Osaka Castle Museum's weapons and armor catalog, and the website of the Costume Museum in Kyoto.